1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a wire harness-side shield connector designed to cope with the difference in electromagnetic shield processing (individual shield processing and collective shield processing) from one vehicle (such as a hybrid car) to another.
2. Description of the Related Art
Shield connectors are already known (see, for example, JP-A-2001-60481 Publication (FIG. 1)).
FIG. 11 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a wire harness-side shield connector disclosed in JP-A-2001-60481 Publication (FIG. 1).
In the shield connector shown in FIG. 11, a male connector housing 100 includes a tubular hood portion 102 mounted on a connector housing 101, the hood portion 102 being in the form of an electrically-conductive aluminum sleeve. The hood portion 102 is fitted in a mating connector 110, and surrounds metal terminals 103 to function as a shield shell of the male connector 100. The male connector 100 further includes cylindrical springs 104 provided within the hood portion 102, and the cylindrical springs 104 are resiliently contacted respectively with cylindrical shells 112 provided within a housing 111 of the mating connector 110, so that the male connector 100 is grounded for shielding purposes with the mating connector 110.
However, in the above conventional shield connector, the cylindrical shells 112 of the mating connector 110 are provided within the housing 111, and therefore a collective shield braid of a large diameter can not be connected to the connector. Namely, only individual or separate shielded wires can be connected. Therefore, there has been encountered a problem that this shield connector can not cope with the difference in the electromagnetic shield processing (individual shield processing or collective shield processing) from one vehicle to another on which the shield connector is to be mounted.